


The 12 Days of Nivmas

by theproletariatdontdeservecake



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Bad Flirting, But it's still snowing and I have 2 months worth of holiday scribblings to look through, Christmas, F/F, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Gen, Gift Giving, I mean "Nivmas", I'm aware I'm 3 weeks late for a collection of Christmas stories, Literal Sleeping Together, Mistletoe, Slice of Life, featuring my very first Gruulfriends story!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:47:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22241305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theproletariatdontdeservecake/pseuds/theproletariatdontdeservecake
Summary: Niv Mizzet, Firemind, Dracogenius, Living Guildpact, historical revisionist, and self-proclaimed Savior-of-Ravnica declares himself a holiday.For better or for worse, the city of Ravnica must abide.This is really just an excuse to write characters I like into each others lives (and often, into each other's arms) in a self-indulgent, often-saccharine, vaguely holiday-themed collection of stories.I'll add tags (character, relationship, and otherwise) as I post.
Relationships: Chandra Nalaar/Nissa Revane, Jace Beleren & Lavinia, Teysa Karlov/Tajic
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13





	1. A Bipartisan Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Teysa and Tajic spend the holiday together, though not quite in the way they'd planned.

Teysa awoke the same way she’d drifted off to sleep, under Tajic’s heavy cape with his arm around her, gently rocked by the rise and fall of his chest and the steady beating of his heart.

They’d set out to spend the day together, away from prying eyes and gossiping tongues and the plots and machinations of their respective Guilds, and they'd planned for weeks in secret, rearranging schedules and excusing themselves from commitments, their furtive and increasingly suggestive communication in the intervening period leaving little doubt as to how they were going to spend Nivmas.

Then on the day itself, the most curious thing happened.

She’d made an offhanded comment while they were uncorking the wine, referencing a contentious piece of legislature that Sunhome and Orzhova had spent the better part of the year debating in front of the new Guildpact, and Tajic surprised her by countering with a surprisingly valid and _eloquent_ (for a soldier anyway), if misinformed point.

The response led to an exchange, which turned into a discussion, and before she knew it, they’d ended up spending the entire evening on the couch in front of the fireplace, arguing—not in the cogent, practiced way advokists discoursed the law, but with a wholly different sort of debate,the kind where witty fallacy trumped jurispudic knowledge, and more points were conceded to warm, well-timed kisses than to cold, sound logic—until they fell asleep, wrapped in his cloak and each other.

Not exactly what they’d had planned, but far from what she’d call unpleasant.

She picked a bottle up off the floor (it had fallen over at some point, staining a ludicrously priced rug with an even more ludicrously priced vintage) and held it up.

They were out of wine.

She looked up at the snow blanketing the city outside the window and sighed. She had no interest in being outside in the cold on Nivmas morning.

“You drink like a legionnaire,” Tajic remarked. His rumbling chuckle turned into a rumbling yawn that tickled the top of her head.

She felt him shift, powerfully but gently, as he made to get up.

“I’ll get us more.”

“No,” she said firmly, letting her arm fall to her side and the bottle slide back onto the floor. It rolled under the couch and out of sight. “Stay.”

She felt an immediate twinge of guilt at her tone; she hadn’t meant for it to sound like a command.

She reached up to touch his bearded cheek. “It’s too cold out.”

He rumbled again and pressed the roughness of his wind-chapped lips to her fingers.

She smiled, feeling his muscles relax behind her, and leaned her head back onto him. Then, stroking lazily at his beard, she watched without really watching as the ice crept across the glass.

They were asleep again before the window frosted over.


	2. Particularly When Served With Pear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lavinia drops by to give Jace his Nivmas present.

“It’s called a krukh,” Lavinia said, setting the cage on the table so Jace could get a closer look at the feathered creature inside. “I’m told they’re exceedingly loyal.”

It skrawked in Jace’s face and he recoiled.

“…and extremely territorial.”

“You don’t say,” Jace said, shifting backwards in his chair a little. “You also didn’t say what it was for.”

Lavinia gave an uncharacteristic smile. “It’s for you. I thought it would make a good Nivmas gift.”

The krukh made another ugly noise.

“Oh.”

“I can no longer see to your personal protection,” Lavinia continued, pretending not to notice the dismay that Jace was having trouble keeping off his face. “But if the krukh grows up believing this house is its lair, it should defend it like it is.”

The bird stared at Jace with beady eyes. Finding its gaze uncomfortable, he looked to Lavinia instead. “If?”

She shrugged. “It should… given enough time.” The krukh clicked its beak and began rapping an oversized talon on the floor of its cage.

“It’s very thoughtful of you, Lavinia,” Jace said. “But I’m not really sure that Lili—"

"I’ve already checked with the Countess Vess,” Lavinia said, matter-of-factly. Liliana, surprisingly, had been more than on-board with the idea. “She said it would be alright.”

The bird began flapping its stumpy wings, sending several molts floating out of the cage and into the air. Jace quickly cast a spell that engulfed the floating feathers in azure, then returned them to the cage floor in a neat pile, which the krukh promptly skrawked at.

Jace’s brows knitted. “Well, in that case… thank you,” he said, uncomfortably. “Though, really, Lavinia…” He glanced at the bird again. It was pacing and truly hideous. “You _shouldn’t_ have.”

“You don’t like it?” Lavinia asked, raising an accusatory brow.

“No, I do!” Jace said, grabbing at the sides of the cage with both hands. “I’m really just surprised at how—Agh!” The krukh nipped him and he pulled his hands back.

“I mean, I’m sure it will make a good… _pet?_ ”

Lavinia stared and Jace forced an awkward smile.

“It won’t.”

She offered no further explanation, enjoying watching Jace squirm in the moment of uneasy silence before she let him off the hook and her lip curl into a smile.

“…but I’m told it makes for an _excellent_ meal.”


	3. Under the Mistletoe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chandra tries an indirect route, both literally and figuratively.
> 
> (And hopefully in which the reader forgives me for how lazy the title is because it's an ungodly hour and because the yuletide mood that fueled these ideas is fading faster than I can convert the notes into stories. IT'S NOT EVEN SNOWING ANYMORE.)

“Do you know what that is?” Chandra asked as they walked under the hanging gardens.

Nissa looked up and smiled. “Mistletoe!” she said brightly, and tiptoed to reach for a sprig. The branches seemed to lower themselves toward her as she did.

“ _Exactly._ ” Chandra grinned and took a step closer.

A curious squirrel scurried down the trellis. Nissa let it clamber onto her staff and began feeding it the berries.

Chandra took the opportunity to check her breath. She licked her lips to moisten them. To her annoyance, they dried almost immediately. 

She took another step closer.

“You know… on some planes, people _kiss_ whenever they walk under mistletoe.”

Nissa looked up, puzzled, then smiled. “How silly.” She turned her attention back to the squirrel. “Why?”

“ _Well,”_ Chandra began, in her best come-hither tone, before realizing: “I… don’t actually know.” She frowned.

Nissa nodded; she’d long ago decided it was easier to accept that humans often did things for no reason other than that they could.

“Did you know that mistletoe is poisonous to humans?”

Chandra’s expression said she most definitely did not. “No,” she admitted, eyeing the overhanging berries warily.

Nissa turned to smile at her, pleased they had each learned something new.

And Chandra, lost in the endless green of her gaze, forgot what she was going to say.


End file.
